From the Washington Post: Russia’s becoming more digitally isolated

Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! RIP to actor William Hurt. My favorite of his roles was in the 1981 neo-noir film “Body Heat.” Aaron’s a big fan of “Broadcast News” from 1987.

Below: A notorious Russian troll farm may be responsible for a pro-Putin disinformation campaign, and the NSA is investigating whether the Kremlin is behind a satellite Internet outage during the Ukraine invasion.

The digital iron curtain spells cyber vulnerabilities for the Russian people
Russian office workers watch an annual live call-in show with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Musa Sadulayev/AP)

Russia is growing increasingly isolated from the global Internet in ways that spell trouble for its citizens’ cybersecurity.

A slew of Western tech and cybersecurity companies have stopped selling in Russia since it invaded Ukraine. That could make it far easier to hack Russian citizens — and far tougher for them to maintain privacy online.

  • It will also leave Russian citizens and companies reliant mostly on Russian tech and cyber companies, such as the anti-virus provider Kaspersky, which U.S. intelligence officials say can’t be trusted.
Fractured Internet

The effects could be felt far outside of Russia. The moves come in the context of efforts by China and other repressive governments to limit the role of Western tech firms. They could speed up the transition to a fractured Internet where online security and privacy is the sole province of democracies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/14/russias-becoming-more-digitally-isolated/